


Kidgelle MerAU thread

by Sacrulen (Sylenis)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, Monster Anatomy, Multi, Other, Twitter thread cleaned up for easier reading, basically intersex Pidge bc I can, fish anatomy, merAU, merfolk makin babies, oviparous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-09-01 00:08:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylenis/pseuds/Sacrulen
Summary: A thread from my NSFW Twitter that kind of got out of hand lengthwise. Cleaned up, shorthand fixed, and some missing parts added and then put here for easier reading.Merfolk AU involving Keith/Romelle/Pidge. CW: some gender talk, fish are weird, yo so as far as I'm concerned merfolk are too.As it started on Twitter it's very Twitter-thread-formatty. Not really prose.





	Kidgelle MerAU thread

  
<strike>MerKeith has two claspers and MerPidge has a prehensile dick and they're horny lil fucks who say they're 'hunting' but actually go hide in the fauna and take all three appendages together and rub up on each other until they're a squirming mess of coiled purple and green scales.</strike>  
  
<strike>Galra mating practices are kinda violent (but then so are a lot of marine mating practices from what I've learned) but Pidge is A-OK with this pls do the biting and the grabbing and the whole 'mating in a current or you'll not get enough oxygen' thing is VERY fun.</strike>

(Explicit stuff ends here, just wanted to leave it in BECAUSE IT'S GOOD  
  
  
  
Mer numbers are dwindling, luckily most are compatible and taking multiple mates is encouraged. Pidge/Matt are intersex (all the articles I've seen on fish call them simultaneous hermaphrodite but I'm not a fan of the term as far as I'm aware it's considered a slur) so they can lay eggs AND fertilize other's eggs.  
  
So cue Pidge and Romelle having a history, and Romelle is ALSO curious about their resident galra and they just end up a big cuddly ot3 (who occasionally invite others in)  
  
Pidge brought up the whole multiple partners thing. She and Keith had been pretty steady going since their youth, and even though she was being encouraged by the pod to help boost the population, so to speak, she didn't want to do that if it hurt Keith.   
  
As it happens, Galra traditionally take multiple mates. Of course, Keith wasn't raised in a Galra setting, but he's willing to give it a shot, and is, surprisingly, a little relieved when it turns out to be Romelle who will be joining them. Keith's early puphood was lonely, and he wasn't immediately accepted into the Altean colony, but if Pidge was his first friend, Romelle was his second. He trusts and loves her without question, and is so, so happy that he's with two people who love him back the way they do.

  
Though he _is _a little outnumbered when it comes to the girls. Both are very good at wheedling him into doing things, and all three of them are very headstrong and stubborn. Still, it's a very laid-back setup. Pidge never set out to just... Have mates for the sake of breeding, she wanted a connection between her partners, and this is everything she wanted. They're very happy, very quickly and will be lifelong mates.  
  
They actually skip the first few breeding seasons, but as another draws closer they try to make a plan/figure out how to go about this. Keith can only sire pups, Romelle bear them, and Pidge could do either or both. They ask Romelle if she'd prefer to try with one of them over the other, and she says she'd like to let nature take its course. She loves them both equally and can hardly make a choice like that. Pidge has to think long and hard about what she wants; she's happy to try with Romelle, but to lay her own clutch feels a little intimidating. In the end she says 'fuck it' and they'll just keep going as they were, and if Keith manages to strike gold then that's what will happen.  
  
Pidge and Romelle wear matching teeth and bite marks (Keith tends to get a little overexcited after watching Pidge take Romelle apart so well, who wouldn't though) and they nap a lot more, curled up together among their bedding. Keith's a little unsure anything will come of his participation--galra give live birth, and both Romelle and Pidge are of the oviparous variety. His father was Altean but he doesn't really know much about him and his mother doesn't really talk much about _that _side of their relationship.  
  
Romelle lays a clutch he expects are by Pidge, but it's still wonderful to him, to see the nest Romelle has made, tenderly folding kelp and other soft materials around a little group of eggs that shine like pearls. She'll only allow Keith and Pidge inside, and they bring her food, keep watch so that she can stretch her tail and leave the cave for a while, Keith grooms her and nuzzles up to his mate while Pidge finds more nesting materials.  
  
  
Pidge disappears a few days later, and Romelle and Keith are worried when she doesn't show up to help with the eggs. Matt and Hunk come to them to tell them that Pidge is hiding in her bed, hissing at anyone that comes near. Keith goes, worried, but then over the moon when she lets him come into the cove and see the little clutch of perfect, developing opalescent eggs she's curled around.   
  
She didn't realize at first what was happening, and didn't have time to build a separate nest. She's pale and a little in shock, and her mother and Romelle soothe her. Mer eggs are delicate and cannot be moved, and she and Romelle lament that they can't merge the clutches together. Instead Romelle helps her convert her bed into a much safer, easier space for her to wind her tail around and sleep by them for protection. Pidge takes to nesting with a stubbornness that astounds even those who know her best. For a Mer that is normally so restless, so inquisitive and nosy, she rarely leaves the nest, choosing instead to hide her eggs under her fins and adjust the kelp around them near constantly.  
  
  
That escalated quickly, Man I just wanted to think about mermaid Kidge fooling around lol  
  
*  
  
In the old days, a clutch of, say eight eggs would produce 4-7 healthy, happy pups. As time has gone on, that same clutch may yield 2-3 with luck. Matt and Pidge were one such circumstance. Matt hatched, healthy and normal and for a few days more they waited, nursing Matt and as time passed, Colleen and Samuel resigned themselves to the fact that the other eggs were duds. They packed the tiny Matt into the woven sling, ready to move on with the rest of the pod, and then- a second egg, on the edge of the nest began to move.   
  
Katie was identical to her brother, but much smaller. She was never unhealthy or behind in her development, just... Really really small. Samuel was _overjoyed_ to have two pups, and quickly set up a second purse to put her in, holding his precious tiny daughter close as they moved onto their summer grounds. Colleen loves to tell the tale, and it's this Keith thinks of as he holds Pidge's hand and looks at the four eggs. A small clutch, even for a first.   
  
Pidge wants to see Romelle and he takes over watch, hoping they will be strong and healthy. It's not uncommon in a first lay, but it would break Pidge's heart if they were duds.  
  
Romelle and Pidge have changed the nest for fresh materials and lie with hands clasped, tails lazily cupping either side of the clutch. Daydream about their future family, what they might look like, who they might take after. Laugh at Pidge's impression of Keith's face when he realised that some of these eggs might be his. Some are different sizes and they spend some time debating what that might mean.   
  
*  
  
"Ten eggs! Ten!" Pidge exclaims, coming up behind Keith to bump against his jaw affectionately. "There must be something to this group mating thing."  
"You definitely think some of them are mine?" Keith asks. He'd been insisting to himself that Romelle's whole clutch must have been sired by Pidge, but now Pidge has her own eggs, and he can't deny they must be his.  
"We both do. I mean- I know I'm GOOD, but I don't think I managed all that." Pidge smirks, running her nails gently down his tail that's currently creating a wall around their eggs. He rises and they circle each other once, bumping cheeks again.  
Pidge settles back down in the little nest, beaming down at her own small cache. 'We're going to be busy, love.'  
The three Mer divide their time between the two nests, and eventually they manage to persuade Pidge and Romelle to let Krolia in to help guard them.  
  
Of Romelle's ten, four hatch. A good number. Pups are near colourless when born, but over the next few nights the tinges of pink, blue and purple can be seen. There's not a scrap of green or bronze among the four and Keith wonders if it's an omen.  
  
Pidge is there to help, leaving her clutch in the care of Colleen or Krolia so that she can move and nurse and hold the pups, but she grows more excited, and starts to stay longer in her own nest, watching her own clutch with a twitching tail. She laid three moonrises after Romelle, so hers must be imminent too.  
The days tick on with no change. Keith and Romelle start to worry and go to her nest.  
  
"Mama, no!" they arrive to see Pidge pleading with her mother who perches by the nest, long tail taking up most of the cave floor.   
"Katie my love, I think it's time to let go."  
"No, no it's not. They're going to hatch, I know it."  
  
Pidge is hunched over her nest, shielding it from view and staring up through her hair in horror. Romelle joins her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.  
"Please Colleen. A little longer?"  
"Mother, please. I was late, maybe they are too." Pidge is pleading, voice unusually high.   
"They were due more than a movement ago, darling. This just happens sometimes. A lot of first clutches fail." Colleen says gently, but Pidge shakes her head at the word 'fail', and when Colleen reaches for her she hisses, lips pulled back over her bared teeth. Romelle freezes, looking between mother and daughter, and underneath Pidge to the delicate nest she covers.  
  
Colleen gazes, pained at Pidge. "One more night," she says "and then you need to say goodbye."  
Pidge lowers her her snarl and nods, but buries her head in her arms and shakes as Romelle tries to kiss and soothe her.  
Keith hangs back by the opening, watching the exchange but ready to intervene if Pidge had attacked.  
  
"Is there nothing we can do?" He asks of Colleen.  
"Keith." She takes him aside to murmur quietly. "It's been too long. Any longer, and the eggs will start to rot. I fear that will hurt her far more than the waiting. Tomorrow night we must move them, for her own good."  
Keith nods, his heart breaking as he joins his mates on Pidge's other side and mirrors Romelle, pressing their cheeks to hers.  
He goes to watch Romelle's clutch for the night, leaving them to talk quietly to each other and let Romelle hold her. She returns at sunrise, and shakes her head when Keith looks up with the questions in his eyes.  
  
Pidge is listless that morning, curled in her nest around her eggs. Keith touches her gently.  
"I have to go hunt. I'll be back before high-sun."  
She nods, not looking at him.

  
"We can try again next year?" He suggests, and she buries her face in her arm.  
"I don't think it'll change anything. Romelle's are all yours."  
He can't really argue; two of the pups are turning lavender in the faces already.   
"That's not the point. We're all in this together, they're _our_ pups. All of ours. One's hair is turning red, you know?' He adds cajolingly, combing through her own rust coloured locks and she laughs bitterly.  
"Bandor has red hair too." She waves him away, and he leaves to join the hunting party.  
  
*  
  
He deposits his catch with the others, ready for sorting, but feels the need to check on Pidge and breaks away from the other hunters.  
There's a soft, low anxious trilling sound coming from inside, and he speeds up. No. Colleen gave them til moonrise, she promised she'd let Pidge alone until then.  
Pidge isn't in the nest.  
  
She's outside it, but her arms are hooked over the edge, peering into it. She looks up on his approach and gestures for him to come closer.  
'look!' she breathes. Of the four eggs, one is _moving_.  
  
Keith joins her, watching intently, wrapping their tails together as the soft shell of a single egg splits under the inside pressure of a small, fluttering, translucent tail. It's hard to wait, instinct begs him to help but they have to let them hatch alone.   
  
After what feels like an age, a pup no longer than Keith's forearm sprawls in the nest, gills beating furiously to draw in seawater. They flick their tail, searching and Pidge scoops them up and nuzzles at them with a sob. They're both clicking and purring to each other and Keith holds Pidge as she gently counts webbed fingers, gossamer fins and kisses filmy eyelids.  
  
Moonrise comes and neither of them notice until Colleen and Romelle return. Romelle shrieks in surprise and joy and rushes over to see the pup Keith is holding. Colleen holds her daughter and strokes her hair, whispering that she was right, they're just a little late.  
  
The next moonrise comes and there's no change in the remaining three eggs. Reluctantly Pidge lets them be taken. She instead busies herself with the line of mer wanting to see- her father, her brother, Hunk, Allura. Soon the little one can nest with her siblings too, but for now she's a little small and she's kept supervised with the others.

She's got the Altean fins and tail like Pidge, but she's turning dark like Keith. When Romelle's redheaded pup's eyes turn gold, Pidge accepts OK, Keith was right, they're not ALL his, and that was never the point- they have a beautiful pod of perfect pups _together_. All three of them.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are moderated. You know who you are.


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